PhotoShelter Blog » Chris Owyounghttp://blog.photoshelter.com
Photo Industry News, Resources, and OpinionThu, 30 Jul 2015 14:40:40 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3The New PhotoShelter Publish Service for Adobe Lightroomhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/the-new-photoshelter-publish-service-for-adobe-lightroom/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/the-new-photoshelter-publish-service-for-adobe-lightroom/#commentsWed, 22 Oct 2014 15:15:34 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=37867We’re very excited to announce an officially-supported PhotoShelter Publish Service for Adobe Lightroom. After the release of our first Lightroom plug-in earlier this year, we wanted to update it with features that would give Lightroom users much more control over their PhotoShelter accounts without leaving Lightroom. This update, which replaces our existing export plug-in, is a big step in that direction.

In addition to the normal export features, the new Publish Service tracks any changes you make to your original files in Lightroom and gives you the option of updating the version on PhotoShelter automatically – making it easier than ever to ensure that your PhotoShelter website stays up-to-date.

Watch the video below for a walk-through of some of the main features. To download your copy and see step-by-step installation instructions, visit our Support Center.

What’s new in this version? A wealth of features that let you make updates to your PhotoShelter account directly from Lightroom, including:

Option to upload to via the Publish Service feature

Create new published collections and galleries

Mark published images as searchable

List or unlist collections and galleries

Change visibility for collections and galleries

Rename collections and galleries

Edit collection or gallery description

Improved upload speed

Additional image sizing options

Added watermarking options

Automatic update detection when new version is available

Support for Multi-User accounts

Bug fixes and improvements to the export features

What if I use the Pact Software Plug-in?
This plug-in is officially supported by PhotoShelter’s Product and Development teams. As such, we’re committed to the release of new features and improvements on an ongoing basis. When you install the PhotoShelter plug-in, the Pact version will be disabled in the Lightroom plug-in manager but not deleted – you can re-enable it at any time. The PhotoShelter version will detect and make updates to any image previously published using the Pact plug-in.

If you have specific questions about the differences between the PhotoShelter and Pact Software versions, please visit our Support Center or email support@photoshelter.com

CAUTION: Be sure to back up your Lightroom catalog before installing any new plug-ins.

A Word of Thanks
The entire PhotoShelter team would like to extend its extreme gratitude to Paul Kamphuis for his selfless dedication and support for the Pact Lightroom plug-in he originally built which many of our members use. An official PhotoShelter Publish Service would not have been possible without the foundation of the Pact Publish Service into which he poured years of development, improvements and support. Thank you Paul!

We’re very excited to announce the launch of a brand new PhotoShelter uploader tool inside Photo Mechanic Version 5 (Build 15002). For those of you not familiar with Photo Mechanic, it’s an incredibly fast and full-featured desktop image browser. It allows you to ingest, select, edit, and distribute photos faster and more efficiently than any other program we’ve found. And, though you’ve been able to upload to PhotoShelter directly from Photo Mechanic for years now, the latest uploader contains more than a few new features and improvements worth getting excited about.

What’s New: A Quick Overview

This update makes the process of uploading to PhotoShelter from Photo Mechanic faster, more stable, and significantly more useful. If you have either PhotoShelter or Photo Mechanic, now’s the time to try these two power-tools together to improve your workflow from shoot to publish. (There are special deals on both at the bottom of this post).

Switch between the “listed” and “unlisted” sections of PhotoShelter and create new galleries/collections in either section

Set visibility permissions of new collections/galleries without leaving Photo Mechanic

Make images publicly searchable during upload

Opt to skip or rename files that already exist on PhotoShelter

Recent Improvements

Fewer steps to select, edit, upload, and publish images

Streamlined interface for dramatically improved ease of use

Improved performance and stability

Additional Features

Switch between multiple PhotoShelter accounts, including Multi-User

Resize photos on upload

Apply IPTC templates on upload

Rename photos on upload

Save a copy of uploaded photos to a local folder

Save upload logs to a local folder

Browse your PhotoShelter collection/gallery structure

The new uploader allows you to see the exact collection and gallery structure of your PhotoShelter account in a familiar left-to-right column layout. This makes uploading new images to existing galleries (even ones that are nested several levels deep) both fast and predictable.

Create new collections and galleries

You can now create new PhotoShelter collections and galleries from within Photo Mechanic. This feature removes the need to flip back and forth between Photo Mechanic and your web browser to set up new collections/galleries thereby lessening the number of steps to publish.

Set permissions from within Photo Mechanic

One of the most exciting new features in this update is the ability to set the visibility of new collections and galleries from within Photo Mechanic. And, if you add a new gallery inside of an existing collection, you can simply choose to have it inherit its permissions and visibility from the existing collection as well.

Browse “listed” or “unlisted” areas separately

The previous uploader displayed all galleries in a single list that made sorting difficult when you were trying to upload new images to an existing gallery. Now, the “listed” and “unlisted” sections of your PhotoShelter account are shown separately, making it much easier to find specific galleries as well as create new ones in specific locations.

Additional features

The uploader also has a host of other features, most notable of which is the ability to add custom IPTC metadata templates to the images as they are uploaded to PhotoShelter. This is useful for photographers who want to add additional keywords or captions to their publicly searchable images to be indexed by Google. The uploader can also rename the images with search engine-friendly file names as they are uploaded to PhotoShelter. Example: A photo with the IPTC headline of “Cheeseburger” and the original filename “_DSC8564.jpg” could be automatically renamed to “Cheeseburger_DSC8564.jpg” at upload. The original file would be unchanged and the version uploaded to PhotoShelter would have a search optimized file name that also retains the original name assigned by the camera.

Putting it all together

In a nutshell, the new uploader removes the need to flip back and forth between PhotoShelter and Photo Mechanic in order to publish photos to the web. Previously, the old way required Photo Mechanic, a browser, many steps, and lots of clicking. Now, the entire process can be done without ever leaving Photo Mechanic. You can even cue up a series of uploads to different PhotoShelter galleries one after the other.

As of now, the Photo Mechanic uploader is the most full-featured of the six ways to upload images to PhotoShelter. We highly recommend Photo Mechanic to any photographer looking for a faster way to ingest and select images after a shoot (and we’ve tried virtually every program out there). For large shoots like weddings, music festivals, or multi-day events, Photo Mechanic can literally shave hours off of the image selection, captioning and keywording processes. Add to this the new PhotoShelter uploader tool and you’ve also got a very efficient way to publish your finished images to the web for sale or distribution to clients.

Special offers

PhotoShelter members get a 10% discount on Photo Mechanic. Log in and visit the benefits & discounts page to get your promo code.

Photo Mechanic users get a 30-day free trial of PhotoShelter websites with the promo code PM1311 through 11/30/13.

Like other forms of traditional and online marketing, Google AdWords can be a powerful way to drive potential customers to your photography website. When used correctly, it can result in a steady stream of highly qualified clients and increased sales. When used poorly, it will almost certainly become an extremely expensive waste of time. As with any new part of your photography business, you must carefully weigh the potential return of investment (ROI) in AdWords against all other expenditures of your time or money. The following exercises will help you decide if you should include Google AdWords in your overall photography business plan.

What is Google AdWords?

In a nutshell, Google AdWords allows you to create text-based advertisements that appear in the search engine results that are relevant to your website. Companies large and small often use AdWords and other forms of paid search engine marketing (SEM) in conjunction with search engine optimization (SEO) to increase the likelihood that their website will appear on the first page of search engine results for their relevant keywords.

How does it work?

You pay for Google AdWords and other forms of SEM through by one of several methods, the most common being a pay-per-click model. In this scenario, when someone’s search contains the keywords you’ve chosen for your ad, Google displays your ad on a search engine results page (SERP), and you only pay for it when someone clicks on it. You control the keywords that can trigger the ad, as well as the amount you’re willing to pay per click. The more you’re willing to pay-per-click, the higher up on in the SERPs’ ad list you will appear.

The second common, but less popular model, is cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). When using CPM bidding, you pay a set amount for every 1,000 times your ad is shown, whether people click on it or not.

In almost every situation, we recommend that photographers use pay-per-click bidding because it ensures that you’re only paying when a potential customer actually clicks through to visit your website.

What are the benefits?

Like any form of advertising, Google AdWords exposes your business to a larger audience of potential customers. Specifically, it has the power to put the specific products and services you offer in front potential customers at the exact moment they are looking for them. And, since Google is an international service, AdWords can display your ads to customers anywhere, 24/7.

The main difference is that you’re paying to rank at the top of the SERPs, rather than engaging in SEO best practices to get there organically.

So is your photography business “big enough” for AdWords?

As you might imagine, the answer depends on quite a few factors. First and foremost, you’ll need to determine if there is enough search engine interest in your services to justify using AdWords in the first place. To accomplish this, use Google’s free Insights for Search and Keywords tools to find strings of keywords that are related to your business.

When looking for keywords to advertise against, simply choosing words with the highest traffic is a bad idea. While shorter, high volume terms like “wedding photographer” or “stock photography” might seem like good places to start, they will result in lots of high-priced clicks on your ad but very few sales. Instead, look for longer strings of keywords that relate very specifically to your products, services, and geographic location so that you attract the right clients and customers. If you need help with this exercise, try thinking like your ideal customer. For example, if you were a bride getting married in Kenilworth, Illinois, which of the of the following terms would you use to find photographers to hire?

“wedding photography”

“wedding photographers”

“chicago wedding photographers”

“kenilworth chicago wedding photographers”

Of, if you were a picture researcher looking to license a photo of the Hawaii state fish, which of these terms might you use to find one?

“tropical fish photos”

“fish stock photography”

“stock photo hawaii state fish”

“humuhumunukunukuapua’a stock photo”

As a general rule, more specific search queries, also known as long-tail keywords, have much lower search volume but come from potential customers who are further along in the buying cycle. And, if you offer specialty images or service to a specific geographic area, be sure to include relevant words in your research.

At the beginning, it’s a good idea to advertise against a set of highly specific long-tail keywords and a few more general terms at the same time. Google will provide you with all of the data needed to determine which keywords are money-makers and which ones are duds.

Determining budget

After you have a keyword list that closely matches your services, you’ll need to use Google’s Traffic Estimator to see how much it will cost to advertise against some or all of your search terms. Enter a term, the maximum you’re willing to pay for a single click, your daily budget, and the tool will give you an estimate of the number of visits that term will generate for the amount you’re willing to spend.

Making a decision

If you’ve followed this process so far, you have your keyword list and budget, but you’ve probably realized that you still don’t know if AdWords will work for you business. Luckily the answer isn’t far off. All that remains is to estimate how much new business can you expect for your investment. To do this, you need to understand the rate at which visitors to your website turn into buyers or new commissions; this is known as your conversion rate.

Your conversion rate depends on many different factors, including:

How well your ads match what the potential customer finds.

How quickly they can find what they came for.

How well your website compares to others they’ve seen.

And how easily they can either purchase your photos or contact you.

There are also many subtle factors involved, but for the purpose of this exercise, we think photographers should start with a conversion rate that amounts to no more than 1% of the total visitors from AdWords. (We know 1% sounds low, but when was the last time you searched for something on Google, clicked on an ad, and then immediately purchased what you found on the resulting website?)

Hypothetically, if you advertise against the term “chicago wedding photographer,” which has an imaginary monthly search volume of 1,000, and 10% of those people click on the ad resulting in 100 visitors to my website, only 1 of those visitors will contact me to learn more about my services. In reality, you can use Google’s Traffic Estimator tool learn approximately how many clicks our ad will receive per day and how much it will cost for each of those clicks.

The term “chicago wedding photographer” actually has 9,900 monthly searches, with an average cost per click of $1.33, an estimate of 5 clicks per day, for a daily cost of $6.66. If you do the math, this mean that if your website has a 1% conversion rate, and you’re advertising against “chicago wedding photographer,” you’ll spend approximately $133.00 to get one inquiry. If you know from previous experience that you book roughly 1 out of every 5 inquiries, it will cost you $665 for every client you book through AdWords. By this logic, if you’re currently booking $10,000 weddings, this math looks pretty good; if you’re selling royalty free stock photography, AdWords isn’t for you.

Takeaway

If you do decide to try Google AdWords for your photography business, you must do everything you can to make sure that your website is good at converting visitors into sales and business inquiries before you launch your ad campaign. Specifically, your website needs to meet the expectations established by the text in your ad, hold the interest of the customer with additional information about your products and services, and give them an easy way to buy your images or contact you for new work. If you have a PhotoShelter website, be sure to configure your account for sales, price your images, make them publicly searchable, and complete your About and Contact pages. If you mentioned a photographic specialty or service in your ad, consider using one of your Custom pages to describe that specialty in depth and link directly from the ad to that page.

Want more strategies and insights to improve your website’s search engine rankings? Sign up and get the free 39-page SEO for Photographers Workbook, plus more tips sent right to your inbox with our 4-week Bootcamp.

Automatically convert your Blurb book to an eBook and sell it on the iBooks® app on the iPad®, iPhone®, and iPod touch®.

Blurb will now convert any book made with their free bookmaking software into an ebook for just US $1.99 . The resulting ebooks are available for purchase in the Blurb Bookstore and on the iBooks app on the Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. Book owners are able to set their own prices for both the printed and ebook versions.

With nominal setup costs, zero shipping, no time for delivery, and virtually no geographic boundaries, we think ebooks offer photographers an extremely attractive way to show, market and generate from their work.

Last week the official PhotoShelter WordPress plugin was born – a free, public download that allows PhotoShelter users to streamline their blogging workflow by embedding photos and slideshows directly into the body of a blog post without leaving WordPress. Here’s a rundown of the main features of the plugin, plus a short review of how I use the plugin to save lots of time and improve my SEO. Also way down at the bottom, I include 22 other fantastic plugins for photography blogs.

Features of the official PhotoShelter WordPress Plugin:

Embeds any publicly visible PhotoShelter image or slideshow directly into a blog post without leaving WordPress. So, no need to separately log into PhotoShelter to copy and paste image links into WordPress – a HUGE time saver.

Creates “blog-ready” versions of your photos from the high resolution files in your PhotoShelter archive. The plugin dynamically generates a resized, sharpened and (if you choose) watermarked version of your photo that will fit the content area of your blog perfectly. In other words, you’ll never have to create, upload or manage separate “blog copies” of your photos ever again. Since the photos are created on-the-fly at PhotoShelter, they don’t take up any space on your hard drive or blog server.

Embeds images that automatically click-through to the version of the photo that lives on your PhotoShelter website. This feature allows blog visitors to buy prints, products or digital downloads with a click and creates backlinks (that search engines like Google need to find your photos) at the same time.

Allows you to search for images by gallery or by IPTC keyword, a feature that really comes in handy when you want to write a blog post about a group of related images from different shoots. Example: The 10 Best Hamburger Photos I’ve Ever Taken.

Automatically copies the IPTC description into the ALT text of the image embedded in your blog by reading the metadata of your high resolution photo.. This is great for SEO. (Since search engines like Google can’t actually “see” your photos, they look to the ALT text of your images to tell them what they are.)

What’s the Bottom Line?

I’ve been playing around with the plugin for about a week and I have this to say – although it’s still in the public testing stage, the new plugin is the best way for photographers who use PhotoShelter to add images to their WordPress blogs. It’s painless to install, simple to use, it’s good for SEO, and it can save you a lot of time.

If you’re interested in specifics on how the plugin has improved my own blog workflow the following overview should help.

My Old Workflow

Before using the PhotoShelter plugin for WordPress, my workflow looked like this:

1) Open my high resolution file in PhotoShop. 2) Resize the image to fit the content area of my blog (exactly 600 pixels wide) 3) Sharpen the image with unsharp mask to bring back the details 4) Open the file containing my watermark 5) Copy, paste and position the watermark on the sharpened image 6) Save a copy of the new “blog version” to my hard drive 7) Create a new blog post in WordPress 8) Use WordPress to upload the image to my web server 9) Fill in the ALT text by hand 10) Insert the image into the blog post

My New Workflow

Here is what my workflow looks like after installing the PhotoShelter plugin for WordPress:

1) Create a new blog post in WordPress 2) Click on the PhotoShelter icon in the post toolbar (to open the plugin) 3) Find my photo by gallery or by keyword search 4) Type in desired width of the image (in pixels) 5) Select HTML or Flash 6) Click “Insert Image”

In the new workflow, the images for my blog are automatically resized, sharpened and watermarked. The plugin automatically adds the descriptive text Google needs to “see” my photos and creates the link to my PhotoShelter website where visitors can buy prints or license my work. In the end, I’ve saved a lot of time, improved my SEO, and brought my photos closer to my clients – all without creating low resolution copies of my photos that clutter up my hard drive and web server.

Here are a few other useful WordPress plugins (and themes) for photographers. Unlike most other surprisingly useless very informative “Top # WordPress Plugins in the Universe” posts, I recommend these because I’ve actually used them on my own blog.

If you use and love a plugin not covered here, please add your recommendations with a comment on this blog post.

Plugins for Managing Photos and Videos These plugins make using WordPress with images and other media faster and easier.

kPicasa Gallery This neat plugin lets you insert Picasa web galleries in a blog post. It displays your Picasa photos as thumbnails in the body of a blog post and enlarges the images in a lightbox when a thumbnail is clicked.

Plugins for SEO Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plugins help your blog content get found by search engines. They can increase the ranking of your blog by allowing you to put your target keywords in the places search engines look for relevant content. And, since they help you rank higher, they also drive more traffic to your blog. Here are a few of my favorites:

All in One SEO Pack This one gives you complete control of the most important on-page SEO factors. You can write custom page titles, page descriptions and keywords for your blog, even if they’re different from the one you show to visitors.

Example: A visitor sees the title “Inauguration Photos.” The search engine sees “Inauguration photos of Barack Obama at the White House.”

Google XML SiteMaps This plugin generates an XML sitemap to help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com index your blog. Sitemaps make it easier for search engines to index the complete structure of your blog. Every website you have should have it’s own sitemap. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Robots Meta This plug-in gives you control over what parts of your blog search engines pay attention to. Namely, it makes sure that your actual articles rank higher than other content like pages or comments.

Keyword Statistics While it doesn’t choose the best keywords 100% of the time, this plugin increases the SEO of your posts by automatically suggesting keywords as you type. I look at keywords it generates as suggestions before writing my own.

Plugins for Analyzing Your Blog Traffic Analytics plugins give you a window into who is visiting your site and what they are reading. These tools are essential for tracking the success of your keywords and for the determining your most popular content. (For more information about Analytics, check out PhotoShelter’s free guide, Google Analytics for Photographers.)

Google Analyticator This plugin requires a free Google Analytics account. It automatically adds Google Analytics tracking to your WordPress blog without the need to manually edit the code of your theme. Among other things, Google Analyticator tells you what your popular content is, what people are searching for to find you, and where your visitors are coming from.

Social Media Plugins Social media plug-ins come in two varieties: 1) those that help you share your blog posts with your social media followers (on Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and 2) those that let your visitors share your content with their networks. Social media plug-ins can be as effective or more effective than SEO when it comes to spreading the word about your newest blog content. (For more information about using social media, check out PhotoShelter’s free guide, Social Media for Photographers.)

AddThis This is the WordPress version of the popular social sharing tool AddThis. It allows your blog visitors to share your content with 295 of the most popular social networks by clicking on a small bookmarking tool bar on every blog post.

Twitter Tools This plugin integrates WordPress with your Twitter account to allow automatic status updates to your Twitter account every time you publish a new blog post. A word of warning – I was using this plugin until I found that no one was clicking on my tweets because they sounded like they came from an automated plugin. When I resumed tailoring my tweets to my followers, readership rebounded. This plugin is probably most useful for photographers who update their blogs multiple times a day.

TweetMeme Button I love this one. It adds a little green button to your blog articles that allows readers to post a link to your article directly to their Twitter accounts. It also counts how many times the article has been tweeted about, which can bring even more attention to the article from other blog visitors.

Yet Another Related Posts Plug-in As you can tell from the name, this is one of many WordPress plugins that introduces your blog visitors to other relevant content on your site by adding links to related posts at the bottom of the current entry. This plugin has more options than the others in its class and it’s very good at encouraging my blog visitors to read older articles.

Subscribe to Comments When one of your readers comments on a post, this plugin invites them to continue the conversation by notifying them any time a new comment is added. This is an important one for encouraging discussion and repeat visits to your blog. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

Site Maintenance Plugins Site maintenance plugins make sure that your blog continues to run smoothly as the amount of content increases over time. They also ensure that your work is properly backed up in case you need to move your blog to another host or restore your data in the event of a server crash.

WordPress Database Backup This is possibly the single most important tool in this section. It creates an on-demand backup of your most valuable data – your posts and comments. Every photographer with a blog should install this plugin.

WP Super Cache This plugin creates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog which dramatically decreases the time it takes for visitors to load your blog. The downside is that it slows down how quickly small edits to your posts appear on the site.

AkismetAkismet is a must-have plugin for combating spam comments. My Akismet installation has blocked almost 10,000 spam comments to date. The plugin requires an API key from Akismet.com, but registration is free for personal use. Thanks to photographer Dave Hodgkinson for reminding me about this one.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/Contact Forms By default, many blogging platforms lack something all photographers need – a professional and easy way for clients to contact them or “subscribe” without leaving their browsers. Here is my favorite:

Contact Form 7 This plug-in is perfect for photographers; it’s simple to set up and it allows you to create multiple forms so you can handle different types of inquiries. If you need separate questionnaires for your wedding, portrait and commercial clients, this one is for you.

Wufoo Wufoo isn’t a plugin, it’s a company that creates highly customizable forms that can be embedded in almost any website or blog. If you need a form with the most options, you’ll want to give Wufoo a try.

WordPress Themes for Photographers There are literally thousands of themes for WordPress but few that are made specifically for photographers (believe me, I’ve searched high and low) Here are a few of the best options I’ve found:

Graph Paper Press Graph Paper Press makes elegant WordPress themes for visual creatives. I use and love Graph Paper Press themes because they make my photos look great and thanks to a partnership with PhotoShelter, I was able to seamlessly integrate my blog with my PhotoShelter website with the press of button.

PurePhotoPress This is a really interesting theme for photographers who want to a tradtional “portfolio” website using WordPress. I haven’t personally used it, but it looks great on both big screens and mobile devices like the iPad.

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/07/photoshelter-wordpress-plugin/feed/25Flash Websites for Photographers, good idea or kiss of death?http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/05/wider-angles-should-photographers-avoid-using-flas/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/05/wider-angles-should-photographers-avoid-using-flas/#commentsFri, 07 May 2010 14:09:09 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/05/wider-angles-should-photographers-avoid-using-flas/Flash is an interactive language used on many photographer websites to bring a level of interactivity and display options that until recently were not possible in HTML. Apple has refused to support Flash in the iPhone and iPad, and Flash has been beset with problems ranging from high CPU utilization to SEO problems.

Grover Sanschagrin is a photographer and vice president & co-founder, PhotoShelter.

Mike Schmidt is the founder of Mohawk Street, an interactive multimedia, production and website design firm.

Thad Allender is a photographer and multimedia producer based in Washington, D.C. He is the former multimedia producer for USA Today and the founder of Graph Paper Press, a web development company focused on creating tools and designs for creatives using WordPress.

There is a laundry list of reasons to abandon Flash. Everyone knows that it doesn’t work on mobile devices like the iPhone or iPad, but that is merely a result of a bigger problem: Flash is proprietary and doesn’t adhere open web standards. The web is moving away from it at a rapid speed because of advances in html, css, and javascript.

It’s easy to hate Flash, but in reality, we owe it a great deal of appreciation. For years, there were few alternatives to Flash on the web: Browsers sucked, web standards were a new thing, and “Google” was a start-up, not a verb. Flash filled a niche where the capability of web browsers fell short. Fast forward a few years and now we have HTML 5, which introduces new ways of presenting multimedia nativity in the browser. Times are changing, and so, we must change with it.

Flash websites have terrible SEO. Flash websites sometimes employ “black hat” techniques in an attempt to accommodate for bad SEO. Google will punish you for this.

Flash is a CPU hog and has well-documented security issues.

Flash was designed for mice, not fingers.

R.I.P. Flash.

Will Critchlow is the founder and chief strategist for the web design and optimization firm Distilled Ltd. He is regularly quoted in a wide range of media on the subject of SEO and internet marketing. Will is a Google Qualified Professional.

Coming from an SEO perspective, I would counsel photographers (and anyone else) to avoid websites build entirely in Flash. From an SEO perspective, there is no issue with using rich media elements on a page in much the same way that you would include an image on a page, but you should seek to avoid including important text and, crucially, navigation. In short, Flash can provide great benefits within a portfolio, but use it sparingly and don’t make it crucial to the navigation or understanding of your website.

Roberto De Luna is an American photographer & photography editor. He has recently been featured in the Dutch art periodical Eyemazing, and also held a solo exhibition entitled “Facing West,” which was reviewed in New Yorker Magazine as “appealingly, deceptively casual.” Presently Mr. De Luna is the Photography Editor of Time Out New York. Mr. De Luna is the proud parent of a black & tan dachshund named Nacho. (photo by by Jolie Ruben)

When it comes to flash, there’s really only one word that comes to mind, and that’s LIMITING. For starters, there’s nothing more embarrassing than taking a photographer’s website to a creative director or editor in chief, and telling them to “Just ignore the TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC flash intro, and click on SKIP…”

If you have an animation style intro, or laboriously animated interface, I’m more apt to pass on this work. It’s not that I have a personal objection to this kind of aesthetic (which honestly I do, but that’s not the point) more so to say that if I can’t get your work in front of SOMEONE ELSE’S face rapidly and practically, It’s going to get lost in translation, or I’m not going to send it at all. It may sound harsh, but it’s the physics and reality of how many hours are in a day. If your site takes a full minute to load, that’s a full minute I could have been discussing your work with the art team.

Furthermore, it’s just a fact that FLASH does not perform on the platforms I need it to, and on the platforms that creatives use most (iPhone, iPad, mac products). It’s frequent I’m having a meeting on the go with my iPad, and I simply can’t pull up your work, or when I’m at dinner with a creative director. Hate to break the news to you, but yes, I am looking at work @ 3AM on my iphone, and assigning work. And if I can’t see your work, there’s no way I can hire you. Keep in mind that if you have a flash site that you know and love, it’s not that hard to get a DRIPBOOK account, or some similar interface that will allow me to view your work on the go? Something to consider?

Rob Haggart is the former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside Magazine. He has received photo editing recognition from Graphis, American Photography, Society of Publication Designers, Communication Arts, American Society of Magazine Editors, Photo District News, and was chosen as part of the creative team of the year by Ad Week. He currently freelances as a Photography Director and runs APhotoEditor.com and APhotoFolio.com, a flash based portfolio service for photographers.

It’s hard to beat Flash for showing off photography. When I worked as a Photography Director I looked at thousands upon thousands of websites and I was always wowed by how well flash displayed photography. I also never heard anyone complain about it. That’s why I chose it as the main language for the sites I build now. It allows you to easily scale images, embed high end magazine and advertising fonts (legally), video playback is flawless (plus they can’t be easily stolen) and it’s compatible with older Internet Explorer browsers that are still extremely common. Additionally you can achieve the same search engine results with a flash site as you can with HTML (backlinks are the key here, not HTML).

I’ve also seen HTML websites that are well done and look nice, so I’m not saying Flash is your only choice as a photographer, it really just depends on who your clients. If your clients are Photography Directors, Art Buyers, Art Directors, Creative Directors and Design Directors then you can expect that the majority of the sites they are looking at are built in Flash and they are not using google or iphones to hire photographers. And while the convenience of a one size fits all website might be appealing to many people, making an impact on the desktop in the competitive world of commercial and editorial photography should be your highest priority. In a recent interview photographer Andrew Eccles says ” I think if someone is seriously considering hiring you they’re going to look at the computer screen. I certainly wouldn’t hire a hair and make-up artist, or a prop stylist just by looking at their stuff on a phone.”

So, this leaves photographers who want to utilize the power of flash on the desktop only one choice when it comes to Apple’s iPad and iPhone: build dedicated sites for those devices. And, if you read between the lines, this is Steve Jobs intention with the ban on Flash. The devices are small, don’t have much bandwidth on ATT and have a unique touch screen. Websites on those devices should work differently if you want to give the users the best experience you can.

Regardless of your stance in HTML vs. Flash this is a wonderful time to be creating websites, because both camps are pushing each other to become better and new exciting devices for looking at photography are finally available. Until one emerges victorious and stays there long enough for the majority browsers to be updated, I’m staying in the middle.

Grover Sanschagrin is Vice President of Business Development and co-founder of PhotoShelter. An industry veteran, Sanschagrin, who started his career as a photojournalist, has vast experience with online productions including major roles with SportsShooter.com, ChicagoTribune.com and the Quokka Sports Network (including NBCOlympics.com and FinalFour.net). He has spoken at numerous industry conferences and universities with one goal: To educate photographers about the importance of building a successful online marketing strategy that will result in more assignments, more image sales, and less time in front of a computer.

A photographer website built entirely in Flash has become a liability, not an asset, and should be avoided. Photographers with Flash-based websites should start formulating their evacuation plan now, because those with these websites will soon find themselves losing ground to those who don’t.

The evidence is clear. Flash-based websites suffer SEO penalties, run slowly on some computers, don’t run at all on iPhones and iPads, are statistically proven to attract fewer inbound links, are nearly impossible to conduct image archive searches and e-commerce, and are much more expensive to design, produce, and change. In an attempt to get around some of these limitations, elaborate work-arounds (like “shadow HTML sites”) have been implemented.

These workarounds clearly prove that, on it’s own, Flash is not a sufficient solution for the needs of a photographer today.

Times have changed. In the old days (circa 2007), we designed and built websites for humans. Photographers wanted to inspire other humans (an editor, a bride or a parent), to pick up the phone and a give them an assignment, or buy an image. Today, we need to build websites for humans AND machines — search engines. The same site must serve both.

In addition, humans have also grown to expect more from a website. They want to be able to view your content on their own terms and chosen format (not just a web browser, but an iPhone, iPad, with an RSS reader.) They want to be able to share your content on social networks – yet I know how pissed off I get when trying to link to a photo in someone’s portfolio, only to see it bears the same URL as every other page on your website. And then, a website without search and e-commerce capability is loaded with wasted opportunities…its just window shopping.

Flash is no longer a requirement for a beautiful website, and those who lock themselves inside of a Flash-only world have a website that’s the equivalent of an online time capsule from 2007.

Dump your Flash website.

Mike Schmidt is psyched about storytelling, graphic design, motion graphics, interactive design and video production. When he’s not building interactive multimedia audio and video graphics packages for clients like the New York Times, and the Open Society Institute, he can be found teaching the next generation of visual communicators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he lectures as an Adjunct Professor. Mike worked as a videographer, editor, production manager, television producer, motion graphic designer, web designer, flash animator and multimedia art director before launching his own studio, Mohawk Street.

Photographers should avoid using Flash in their websites most of the time. Flash is great for immersive experiences and interactivity, but bad at search engine optimization and mobile devices (an obvious growth area on the web). A photographer’s website should not be an immersive experience like the Jim Carrey Site: http://www.jimcarrey.com/ because the goal of a photographer site is different. You want to show your photography in a way that the user can both meander through your work and hunt for a specific image at the same time. Users should see how awesome you are and want to hire you or license your work … so navigation, SEO, and image search become paramount.

The thing we used to use Flash for primarily on photographer sites was slideshow players and creative navigation solutions. At the time there was no other option for slideshows. Now there are many. As for creative navigation, research has shown time and again that users are easily confused when you deviate from basic navigation standards. Unless the navigation is the thread weaving a story together, the best way to get viewers to engage with your site is to present great content in a familiar framework.

What about originality? Design can convey mood and emotion, our brains are hardwired to respond to color, texture, type and image and derive an emotional response. Your images are going to be the driving force in the mood of your site, so the design should support the images, not compete with them. Good design on the web is not dependent on Flash … instead it is the skill and execution of the designer. The originality should come from your work.

So when should you use Flash? Flash is still best for interactive content that goes beyond the slideshow or navigation. For creative storytelling that combines images, video, type, information graphics and interactivity, use Flash. Then stick that Flash content into your HTML site. But don’t stop there! Make sure you have a transcript or abstract written up that sits in the HTML next to the Flash content, so the search engines can find it and the mobile users will bookmark it to come back to later when they are on their computers.<br><br><br>

The recent release of PhotoShelter’s new embeddable slideshows, featuring 20+ customizable options, prompted me to look for a bigger and better way to integrate them into my WordPress blog. The solution (seen in the video below) is elegant and relatively easy to replicate.

If you have a compatible WordPress blog keep reading and find out how it’s done.

Can’t I add photos and slideshows to my blog already?

Yes, WordPress has the ability to embed things like photos, slideshows and videos by default. However the size of the photos or slideshows will always be limited by the size of the content area of your WordPress template. If you’re like me and your clients prefer larger photos than your template allows, you have a problem!

What is this WordPress thing?

Like many photographers who are marketing themselves to google and the thousands of potential clients it provides, I turned to the WordPress blogging platform to help strengthen my SEO and to give clients a way to get to know me (and my work) before they call or email.

After following the advice in PhotoShelter’s SEO Cookbook for Photographers for a couple of months, my website went from page six on google to page one for nearly all of my targeted keywords and phrases. With my SEO strategy nailed down, I focused on ways to make my blog entries more engaging to visitors. I discovered that when people talk about ways to add functionality to WordPress, they’re speaking about either themes or plugins.

Themes vs. Plugins

There are many great themes for blogs, including some beautiful WordPress templates built for photographers by Graph Paper Press. However, if you’re like me, you’ve discovered that it’s very hard to customize or add functionality to an existing theme with some serious coding know-how. This is where plugins come in.

What are Plugins?

In an alternate reality where clients grow on trees and pay double the going rate, plugins are a ground breaking new treatment from the Hair Club for Men. In this universe, plugins are tiny pieces of software that add functionality to larger programs. Fortunately, there are thousands of plugins written for WordPress and many of them are built specifically to display photos and videos.

My Method

Combine big, beautiful PhotoShelter slideshows with the FancyBox plugin for WordPress and wow your visitors. The process has 15 steps (gasp!) but don’t worry, most of them only need to be done once.

Step One

Log into your WordPress blog and click on “Add New” under the Plugins area of the Appearance Tab on the left side of the screen.

Step Two

Type “fancybox” in the search form at the top of the page and click the Search Plugins button.

Step Three

In the list or search results, find the “FancyBox for WordPress” plugin written by Jose Pardilla and click the Install link on the right side of the screen.

Step Four

After the plugin has successfully installed, return to the Appearance Tab on the left side of the screen and click on Installed.

Step Five

In the list of installed plugins find “FancyBox for WordPress” and click on Settings.

Step Six

Click on the Galleries tab and change the behavior to “Use a custom expression to apply FancyBox.”

Step SevenClick on the Other tab and change the Frame Size to the width and height (in pixels) of your PhotoShelter slideshow.

Switch to HTML mode in the WordPress post editor. I know you’re afraid, but I have confidence in you. In the blank area, write the code exactly as you see in the example below.

Step Eleven

Log into PhotoShelter, and grab the link to the image that will trigger the FancyBox slideshow.

Step Twelve

Paste it into your WordPress post. Example below:

Step Thirteen

Go to a gallery in your PhotoShelter account, click on “Embed This Gallery” on the left side of the screen and get the embed code for the PhotoShelter slideshow you want to feature inside the FancyBox. (The embed codes for single PhotoShelter photos and vimeo or youtube videos work too).

Click Save Draft and then Preview to see your slideshow in all it’s big beautiful glory. Congratulations, you’re done!

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/04/how-to-embed-photo-slideshows-in-wordpress-using-f/feed/13Wider Angles: The Apple iPad. Publishing Evolution? Photography Revolution?http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/04/wider-angles-the-apple-ipad-publishing-evolution-o/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/04/wider-angles-the-apple-ipad-publishing-evolution-o/#commentsWed, 07 Apr 2010 12:59:51 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/2010/04/wider-angles-the-apple-ipad-publishing-evolution-o/ The Apple iPad, which shipped this week, has created a frenzy of
interest amongst consumers and publishers as a neutral content delivery
platform backed by cool design and the Apple marketing engine. We asked a panel of industry professionals about the implications of the device for photography presentation and consumption.

The big question on everyone’s mind: Will the Apple iPad revolutionize the way photos are presented and consumed?

As Editorial Director of Condé Nast Digital, Jamie Pallot is responsible for content and user experience across the company’s standalone Web brands, including Style.com, Epicurious.com, Concierge.com and Brides.com. He also oversees the creative development of mobile applications for those sites, and played a key role in shaping the GQ e-reader application. Mr. Pallot came to Condé Nast Digital from Time Inc. Interactive where, as an editorial consultant, he oversaw a redesign of People.com.

Here are the five principal issues which have stuck in my mind as we have worked through the development of an iPad e-reader platform for some of the Condé Nast magazines.

Photos on the iPad look gorgeous. The device will rekindle (pun intended) readers’ enthusiasm for looking at pictures, simply because the graphics are so rich and immersive.

The relationship between image and caption takes on a new dimension. Being able to control whether or not a caption is displayed, or have captions shift in sync with images as you move through a slideshow, brings more meaningful – and sometimes playful – integration between visual and textual information.

Navigation becomes part of the fun. One of the things that makes the iPad so compelling is the intensely tactile interface. The pleasure that a user takes in looking at a picture becomes inseparable from the pleasure he or she takes in swiping, tapping, or using myriad other physical gestures to interact with images.

Creativity is not limited to the photographer. The designers and engineers who devise new ways of displaying, storing, and interacting with images now have an important seat at the table.

There will be a greater sense of ownership on the part of the user. Some publishers will allow readers to save pictures from e-magazines to their own libraries, where they can organize them, play with them, even alter them as they wish. There’s a perceived downside here for some photographers, who lose control of their creations, and for the people who manage rights and permissions. More negotiations, more legal issues, more paperwork. That’s the realistic counterpoint to the brilliance of this new device and what it allows us to do.

Tom Kennedy is an internationally-known visual journalist with extensive experience in print and online journalism, including positions as Managing Editor for Multimedia at The Washington Post and Director of Photography for the National Geographic Magazine. He has created, directed, and edited visual journalism projects that have earned Pulitzer Prizes, as well as EMMY, Peabody, and Edward R. Murrow awards.

The launch of the Apple iPad has spurred a frenzy among media companies and individual developers seeking to produce applications that might spur sales.

For me, several questions emerge. Among them are will the iPad contribute to the sustainability of visual journalism as a business and how will it impact the release of visual creativity that then builds a loyal, engaged audience?

I think both questions are germane to professional visual journalists who face increasing competition from amateurs whose skills have been amplified by the digital revolution. The economics of image ubiquity have seemed to favor the amateur of late, while further accelerating the “race to the bottom” in terms of money available within media companies to purchase and use high-quality, unique professional photography. While the top ten percent of photographers in any category may continue to have plenty of work, it is the professionals in the middle who are increasingly at risk.

The iPad offers a powerful appeal to media companies because it allows them to revisit the decision to put content behind “pay-per-view” firewalls: something most media companies eschewed on the Web. It may make sense to reconsider the decision, but I think news media publishers are dreaming unless they also use the iPad platform to alter fundamentally the end products being offered.

I think consumers may well appreciate the iPad interface with its slick ability to enable touchscreen manipulation of images. Flows of imagery can easily be reorganized and adjusted as part of “editorial decision-making” made by the end user. This kind of interactivity may be seen as the harbinger of a new kind of immersive experience with content that creates new fans for photography.

The iPad may also enable new forms of media fusion, at least on the display side, that somehow alter creative possibilities for visually-based storytelling. If that were to come to pass, then it might offer some possibilities for resurgence in the use of photography as well as interesting possibilities for new collaboration between game developers, designers, programmers, and content producers. Anything that enlarges the ecosystem of creative collaboration and that affords new creative possibilities for individual practitioners is something I am in favor of seeing happen.

I see the iPad as sitting in a valley reached by three different paths. One route represents social communication. Another represents the quest for information. A third represents the search for on-demand entertainment. At first blush, the iPad seems to offer an end destination for each path. The question is what does photography contribute to each path and what are consumers willing to pay to make photography a fundamental part of each path’s experience? All photographers have a stake in addressing the questions.”

Stella Kramer is a multi-award winning photo editor who has worked for such major publications as Newsweek, The New York Times, Brill’s Content, People, Entertainment Weekly, and Sports Illustrated. She was part of the New York Times team winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, and served as the photo editor the New York Times “Portraits of Grief,” memorializing those who lost their lives in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and a 2002 Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography. Stella now works with photographers to strengthen their creative vision, edit their portfolios and websites, and set marketing plans for their careers.

The iPad is not going to save the world, and it’s certainly not going to save publishing (or journalism for that matter). Right now, all I see is the same old same old. When magazines and newspapers began throwing content onto the Web, it was nothing more than what they were publishing on paper. From discussions I have had and demos I have seen, there is very little that excites me about translating the telling of stories onto the iPad.

I don’t see myself buying an iPad to read The New York Times, or Time magazine, because they are not looking to reinvent their ways of story telling to take advantage of this new technology. Wouldn’t it be amazing if instead of seeing the Times front page on the iPad (like you see it on the newsstand or on their website) what you saw was something else? Maybe one deep story broken a few days in advance, full of long-form journalism, extended images, links to parallel information, all brought together with sound, moving image–whatever to re-imagine how a story can be told.

I would like to see photographers rise to the challenge of re-examining how they tell stories, using this as a jumping off point to re-invent the way they work. Why let the MSM decide what will be on the iPad, and how you will view information? Why not ignore them and create something that is really exciting?

Maybe that means joining with designers, videographers, and anyone with bright new ideas, and putting work on the iPad for everyone to see. Major publishers are not innovators. They jump on the bandwagon when forced to increase the bottom line.

I’m calling out photographers and other creatives to direct the future of story telling for the iPad. And when I see that, then I’ll be buying one.

Based near Baltimore, MD, David Hobby was a staff newspaper photojournalist for 20 years before founding Strobist.com in 2006. He now divides his time between education and project-oriented photography.

As someone who is both a photographer and a web publisher, I am doubly excited about the iPad. I’ll be looking for the UPS man starting early on Saturday morning.

As a publisher, I have been counseling my advertisers to consider moving from Flash display ads to something that can be seen on the iPad, iPod and iPhone — at least until the new HTML5 capabilities come online.

As a photographer, I am excited because I do feel the iPad will push the traditional media into more visually rich presentation, without the tight space constraints or reproduction issues that we see with print today.

I expect that some photographers will be ahead of the curve, driving the way that content is consumed in digital publications. You can’t help but think journalistic multimedia houses such as MediaStorm are chomping at the bit as we approach April 3rd.

As a photographer, I am most eager to see how the iPad works as a display device for portfolios. I know some photographers who have ordered not one, but several iPads for delivery on launch day just for that reason — to be able to ship multiple portfolios at once.

The written word has been king since Gutenberg got us going a few hundred years ago. That is changing quickly, and I think the iPad will speed the transition to media being consumed in a more visual and intuitive way.

Deb Pang Davis is owner and creative principal of Cococello. She helps right-brained entrepreneurs navigate the chaos of building an online brand by helping them make smart decisions about their websites. First, I don’t own an iPad – yet – so I don’t have any hands-on experience with it; however, I’m really excited about it as a user and web designer.

If your website is accessible on an iPad, your website could work even harder for you on this larger, lighter, mobile device.

Given that the iPad doesn’t support Flash-based sites, I’d suggest migrating your site if it depends on Flash – unless you don’t care about iPad users.

What makes the iPad amazing to me is that it sets a high bar for sites to practice Web Standards and thereby increases the potential traffic to your site. The fact that it ships with accessibility features that help people with disabilities consume content, such as Closed Captioning, higher contrast options, Voice Over, Zoom and Mono Audio is to be applauded.

My business strives to create standards-based, accessible websites built with CSS/XHTML and JavaScript with a 960 grid (the iPad is 1024 x 768) so I don’t anticipate a core change to make sites I design fly on the iPad.

I will be paying more attention to usability because of touch screen behavior: larger clickable areas (links, buttons, etc.), white space and explore the option to view in different layouts. I do wonder about the possibilities of horizontally sliding content.

Viewing standards-based websites can be a rich and beautiful experience. The potential the iPad brings for the next level feels exciting and Apple is proudly promoting iPad-ready websites.

Building and owning a standards-based website is high value at a fundamental level. They are designed as a whole to be more search-engine friendly, structured for accessibility and are more cost-effective to maintain in the long run. The iPad just pushes us to make what’s great about the web a great experience for everyone.

Farrell Timlake is the president and owner of Homegrown Video (NSFW: Adult Content), which Newsweek Magazine declared is the “longest running series in the history of porn”. Homegrown Video has been actively involved in digital media and streaming technology since windows media was still called “netshow” and has consulted on streaming technology as well as having patents pending.

In the short term there will be a few early adopters who will do the minimum to get any content they have onto the device. In the long run this new step in technology will provide industry vets with an opportunity to make their content offerings more interactive – perhaps leveraging the technology’s touch screen capabilities as well as its motion sensing functions to make the adult content experience evolve to another level. In the long term I see this and other devices like it driving the way humans do everything. So the industry will ultimately want to embrace this not only as a souped up video player but also an opportunity to be a part of an ongoing lifestyle addition where things like community, cams, and other interactive services are becoming far more important to keeping a users attention. The iPad will need to keep pace with this or it will be obsolete faster than you can say “Good job, Jobs”

Although the device is revolutionary, it’s not without its drawbacks such as the limited ability to enhance UCG (user generated content) in ways that are currently popular in other available devices. (This is largely because the iPad lacks Flash support, mulit tasking, and an integrated video camera.) In successive generations when these issues are worked out, the iPad and other devices like it should address these problems. Adding those missing features will become a big part of what drives the changes to the industry and its interactions. One thing that will be hindrance for someone dealing with cam chat is dealing with the challenges on the on screen keyboard while interacting with a model.

Whether the iPad will make it easier to publish, distribute and sell content depends largely on how hard Apple makes it to put content directly onto the device. This is something Apple has been difficult about in the past. So in the current form, it would be no different than using your iPhone. Over time I think these devices will tailor the industry offerings to evolve to accommodate users watching and interacting with porn on this level. With Apple’s reluctance to cater to adult content, it will be interesting to see whether this hurts them in the long run the way that VHS won out over Betamax.

Photographers have asked me for years for
the magic formula for success in business. I’ve said there was none. I
was wrong. When I look closely at the steps taken by photographers who
have achieved successes, I see a different variation of the same
process; I call the formula, THE MIX.

First of all, let
me be clear, the successful photographers I am talking about are not
the Annie Leibovitzs, of the world. I am talking about photographers
you may never hear of, or read about in PDN. They may sit next to you
at an APA and ASMP meetings. You might have seen their post on aphotoeditor.com
but most likely you’ll never even know they exist. However, they are
successful, as each one at different times in their career has reached
their creative and financial goals. They have achieved their success,
by employing not one or two steps of the MIX but by putting all of the
essential steps needed into place. They went for The Full Monty they
worked the complete mix. That’s the key.

You don’t need every sales option, but some components can’t be left out. You will need to choose one option from each section of the process.

THE FORMULA:

(Each of these must be included)

A talent based body of work ready to sell, (this means a defined visual approach around a specific subject with enough samples to build trust in potential clients.)

A deep database of appropriate contacts (and a smaller more researched group of contacts for in person visits)

Marketing materials that are visually branded to move the visual message forward

Perseverance

Faith

Patience (allowing for a 2-4 year timeline before seeing consistent results)

** Notice that I wrote that those who were successful worked ALL of the steps above not just one or two of them. While there are eight to ten options for sales and marketing tools, you will need to employ at least four or five of them.

“Effective marketing for any business, starts with branding and style combined with an up-to-date database. Marketing is a simple equation and is effective when diversified and done consistently. Agency Access believes in multi tiered marketing and that’s why we offer services that speak to the many tasks photographers have.”

Notice the words “diversified” and “consistent”?

For years I have met photographers who get a piece of the MIX but who don’t jump in completely. Maybe they get the vision piece and then decided to send direct mail out to promote themselves. That’s it, direct mail. Maybe four to six times a year, period. Then there are creatives who believe in sending out visual email once a month. End of story. Of course if they just came back from a photo expo in NYC and heard a panel of art buyers talk about how much email they get, they decide to no longer send email, now they are onto social networking.

Get the drift? Photographers now understand that they need to market but most have not yet embraced the concept of incorporating the MIX.

THE WHOLE ENCHILADA
Lets look at why you need the whole enchilada. (If you find yourself saying “but I can afford to do it all” make a note, but read on).

Everything starts with a complete visual product.

No vision? No need for anything else. All subsequent steps rely on a body of work. ALL your sales and marketing tools are worthless if you don’t have the goods. Lets take a look at why.

Lets assume a buyer has a project (finally). They refer back to one of your marketing tools, and call to ask for your print book. If you don’t have one (because you’re convinced that nobody looks at print books), there goes the assignment. Maybe the next interested creative goes to your site looking for a “deep example” of the type of vision needed for their assignment and all they see is one or two things they are looking for mixed in with lots of other types of photography. The “body of work “needed isn’t there and you’ve wasted their time and your money. They wont be calling again.

Clearly, a vision based body of work, is number one.

So, lets assume you have the vision piece down. Who are you going to sell to? If you have the vision and you are selling to the wrong contacts, you won’t find success. You need a database of potential buyers (contacts who may have your type of assignment in the future) that you have chosen carefully and thoughtfully. This database needs to be large enough to support your outreach efforts (direct mail, visual email) and it needs to include a second, more select group (a segment of the larger database), for in person portfolio visits. Work on this.

So now, lets assume you’ve got the vision-based body of work, and you have developed your database. Now, you need to commit to four or five different sales channels. Yes four or five!

Sales channel ops:

BOLD = Must haves

Website

Blog

Visual email

Visual direct mail

In person portfolio showings

In person networking opportunities

Social online networking

Portal placement

Print sourcebook

Press

You will need to develop a plan of approach that represents the must have options and two or three other avenues for visibility. BUT before you move forward you must decide on how much of a financial investment you will make this year. Yes, I’m talking budget! Crazy? No, it’s smart.

BUDGET, WHO ME?
It’s amazing how many photographers look at me blankly when I ask them “how much money can you spend in the next 12 months on your sales and marketing program?” The answer I usually get is “I don’t know, it depends on how much I make.” Wrong answer. While it may seem to make sense “to spend as you go,” creating a budget before the money is in the bank is actually a good business practice. It also builds excellent energy.

When you put your attention on creating a budget, you are giving yourself a goal to attain. You will need to set a figure that you can afford to spend. You will hold yourself accountable to your resources. In order to set a budget you will need to become aware of where you are in your process of professional growth. You will also review advertising options and ultimately commit to moving forward on 4-5 different sales and marketing avenues. There’s a lot of effort involved here, and lots of “showing up.” Being attentive to your process, and showing up, is good business.

The practices of investigation and commitment will provide you with the steps you need to put in place, and they will energize the universal field surrounding you. “We are our attention” says teacher Depak Chopra. “We become what we put our attention on.” If your goal is to build a successful business and you are putting your “attention” on the first steps, (building a budget and the sales trails that will bring the success to you) you are then creating the energy that will bring you a successful conclusion. The energy doesn’t just appear; your efforts bring it about. You create and direct the energy with YOUR effort and “attention.” Are you following along? You create your reality.

If this is a bit too esoteric for you, consider the very practical truth that in order to develop a budget you will need to determine not only how much you will spend but how you will allocate the funds you project to spend. At the end of your budget research process, you will have determined which tools you will use in order to move your business forward. All you need to do then is to put the steps in place! You are miles ahead of the photographer who waits until the last minute to choose images for the mailer that should have gone out 3 months ago and has no clue what his next step will be as he’s waiting for the money to came in before he will know how much he can spend. Are you catching the drift here?

HOW TO SET A YEARLY BUDGET
Let’s begin by looking at your business. Determine your goal for t his year’s campaign. What purpose will this budget serve? Find your answers by examining your current place in the market and where you seek to be. For example, if you are a new photographer with 3 years or less in the industry your job is to build identity and visibility in the market place. You are most likely building the majority of your sales and marketing tools. Your print book, your website, your database, your direct mail an email visuals will need to be designed and branded together. If this sounds familiar, you will be spending your budget on the foundation steps needed to get your name repeatedly in front of buyers. Building these core tools is your priority.

What if your business is more mature?

You’ve been shooting for over 10 years, you have a stable of clients and are looking to grow your business within the same industry and you want to obtain more creative assignments as you build your client roster. Your goal is to be seen as a creative collaborator and you want to work on national accounts. Do you have the body of work for a national audience? If not, allocate your funds and work with a top-notch consultant who can help you build the visuals you need to attract a national client base.

If your body of work is in place and your product is ready to go to market, you might hire a marketing assistant, who can research potential national clients and get you in person appointments, send your book out and facilitate your out reach (visual email and direct mail) program. Anna Adesanya and Rodney Washington offer these services and Agency Access provides them as well. Budget totals will vary and the way the money is allocated will be different for each talent however there are some guidelines that you can consider when setting your yearly budget.

BUILD SALES TOOLS FIRSTIf you are a new photographer and have yet to create the sales and marketing tools you need, forget the new digital back, commit to building a print book and web site. Check to see how much it will cost you to do this. Consider that you will need a print book (2-3 copies) a web site, a database membership, and email and direct mail. These are basic tools that every photographer needs in order to sell and market. There are many options and price points for developing these tools. Look around and make decisions that will allow you to develop each tool. Plan on spending somewhere between $2500-7,500 for this type of start up. Tooling up at this stage is a significant expense.

If you are tooled up and are looking to build more visibility on a national and international scale, look toward portal buys, or print ads in publications that your clients read. If you are looking to further your reputation as a creative collaborator, think about working with an art director or graphic designer and copywriter and have them develop a beautiful direct mail campaign that is visually driven.

Plan out of town sales trips to see selected buyers researched by your marketing assistant. Photographers who have been in business for five years or more should consider planning to spend between 8-10% of their yearly income on sales and marketing expenses. If this seems high to you consider that all photographers need to build the following “must have” sales channels and that investing in them costs money.

Sales Channels might look like:

Direct Mail that leads to web site hits and calls for your print portfolio

Visual Email sends that lead to web site hits and calls for your print portfolio

In Person Portfolio Showings followed by personalized thank you notes, limited edition prints articles of interest to contacts both online and in print.

Additional tools that you can add as needed and budget allows include, additional portal placement, print ads in industry publications and press.

DEVELOP A PLAN
You will need to develop a plan of approach that includes all of the must have options listed above. Spend time looking around at all the suppliers and options for each tool you need. Determine the total investment needed and see if indeed you can afford the cost of building your program at this point. Break your plan into two six-month segments. If the figure needed is truly beyond what you project you can afford to spend in the next twelve months prioritize your spending for the first six months.

Perhaps the concept oriented, intricately designed direct mail piece is on hold and instead, you send a well designed post card. Or, have two copies of your print portfolio made instead of three. If you projected three out of town sales trips but your budget needs slashing, go down to one trip and see how you might be able to cut expenses for future trips. Put off the web site designed specifically for you by the hot web designer you want to hire and choose a site from a template provider like www.aphotofolio.com, Rob Haggart’s service.

Can you see at this point how helpful it is to plan, research needed fees and then prioritize your spending before you actually start the process? I hope so, because planning ahead serves your business in both practical and energetic ways. As your business is being built to ultimately serve you, your presence and attention is needed.

While you are addressing your paid sales and marketing expenses you will also need to build in Social Networking Tools. The good news is that they cost you nothing financially, but are powered by a very valuable resource, your time.

SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS“The Social networking community is primarily filled with pro-sumers, the professional shooters have yet to join in record numbers,” opines social networking expert Jack Hollingsworth. A seasoned pro, and past ASMP presenter Jack is very familiar with worlds of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Under the handle of “Photojack” Jack advices, educates and informs Twitter pals about the trends he sees in the world of online social media. “Commercial pros who have not yet jumped into the world of social media are missing a great opportunity” says our man Jack. He goes on to explain that “Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all provide opportunities for photographers to build their visibility, however commercial pros need to be smart about the way they approach this new tool.”

Jack is right, you can build your visibility and awareness of your product online but only thru the action of not “selling.” Online social media is all about networking and giving info (NOT PHOTOS) away. How can you navigate the waters? By knowing how you can “share” in each community in a way that benefits you and your tribe.

LinkedIn
Every photographer should have a LinkedIn page and treat it as a business “networking” opportunity. Think BNI. BNI is a national networking group that professionals join. They attend weekly meetings and commit to helping others build their network of interested buyers. LinkedIn is your online network. But as with the 3-d model you need to put your time in. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Post a link to any recent assignments that you feel visually walk the talk of your positioning statement.

List any awards you have b een given, any PR articles written about you or your business. If your current clients aren’t giving you the type of work your positioning statement speaks to, create self-assignments and post those. Make these links your status updates. Post the links on your blog and be sure your blog has easy access to your website where your full body of work is housed. You have just built a sales trial.

Join LinkedIn groups making sure to join groups that your buyers frequent not just photographer based groups. If you live in an outlying area and there is no group for creative professionals for “Acton Massachusetts,” create one. Make sure you write a profile for members that contain your buyers ID. See who shows up.

Look to answer questions people post especially those regarding photography. Post questions on LinkedIn and post answers on your website, create a trail from the LinkedIn page to your website.

Make yourself visible. What you don’t want to do is join LinkedIn and then lay low in the background. Become comfortable living in the foreground.

Post topics and information that build your value to readers of LinkedIn.

Facebook
On Facebook get more personal but not too personal. If you shoot people in the landscape, its ok here to show landscape shots that are not commercial, maybe a scene you saw on your morning walk… If you are a food photographer share a shot from your favorite restaurant or a shot of your favorite guilty pleasure. Still life shooter? Go to the local farmer’s market and shoot a great still life of the veggies in the stalls in the late afternoon light. Are you getting the picture here? Show images that are not off topic from what you do, but are more personal in nature and always shot well.

Posting updates about what you are doing and links to interesting articles that you or others have found is a good idea. Remember to always edit yourself well. By thoughtfully selecting what you choose to share. The idea is to use Facebook to give buyers more of an idea of the person behind the camera without bringing them completely into your personal life.

Stay away from religion, politics and last weekend’s party picks of you guzzling your twelfth beer from an iced cold mug while your significant other looks on in disgust. =)

TwitterMy favorite online social tool is Twitter. 140 characters, with people sharing some very cool information.

While LinkedIn is your networking group and Facebook is a glimpse into you on a more personal level, Twitter shows your personal side through the information you choose to share, and it ‘s wonderful for up to the minute quick updates. The first step is to decide what you will tweet about. Once again make sure your tweets pertain to your business (at least 80% of the time) and reflect your personal interests as well.

For example, I am a spiritual teacher and obviously, a consultant to photographers. I love photography, information that speaks to a positive mindset, and expansive thinking. So I look for people to follow who speak or tweet or share information on these topics. In addition, I follow photographers who may become clients and can benefit from reading what I have to share. As I send out tweets (retweet information from others or items I find that speak to a positive mindset, or on the topic of photography), I am showing my potential clients (my current twitter followers) how I view the world. My tweets are limited to these topics with a few messages that are a bit more “personal” without going off my main themes or launching onto the kind of personal information that I only share with my closest friends….

While Tweeting does not “get me hired” it gives me more visibility and it provides a fuller picture of who I am to potential partners. This should be pretty easy for you. If your tweet topics are based on your work (which was chosen as you love for instance to shoot architecture) then your topics, buildings, light, architectural restoration etc. is integral to which you are.

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHERHere’s is what marketing looked like before social networking

Here ‘s what it looks like now.

The key is to layer your new social networking tools on top of traditional ones. Lets see how this might work. Maybe you are just starting out as a pro. You have tons of time but little money. You do have a body of work, your focus is editorial stories and you want to service non-profits and magazines. You shoot images that reflect people in their environment, portraits moments, and connection.

Build your own database. Choose to bypass commercial lists and create yours by going to the library, and going on line making sure to include publications, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions. Make sales calls, direct mail and email your main focus. Build in a heavy online social networking presence, searching out contacts in all of the areas you have highlighted. Aim to see eight to ten people a month with your portfolio and devote two to three hours per day to online activities.

When on portfolio visits, ask contacts if they are on LinkedIn and inquire about friending them on Facebook. Visits are powerful social networking opportunities and asking contacts about their social networking habits while on appointments gives you the chance to find out where they’re available on the Internet. Go back to your office, friend them and link in. Once they respond look at the associations they belong to. If the online communities are open and it looks like other buyers might be there join in. Look to see what you can add to the mix. In a week or so, peruse the follower lists of your contacts. If there are other contacts that they have that are possible contacts for you and you want an introduction, ask.

As there are many marketing tools online and off don’t feel as if you need them all, you don’t. Intelligently, with careful thought, review your goals, your place in the market, your budget and your time. Decide what your priorities will be and begin to draw the tools from each area that you will use this year. Always include, sales calls, utilize direct and visual email and then choose your social networking tools.

This is a lot to digest. Read it over a few times and then dive in and begin to create a MIX, one that is perfect for you and will take your business to the next level !